“It’s always good to win any match, and I think that on the basis of the play we had, especially the first half, I thought we deserved to win the game. So, obviously, the red card for Parkhurst makes a difference in the match, but I still felt from that, we went on and had a good performance. To score four goals in any game – although we got an extra 30 minutes to do that – is good. Pleased for the guys. You know, the Crew made it difficult. We went up and then we go down. But we came back into it, good substitutions by the staff, if I do say so myself, to bring Juan on. But Juan’s been waiting for a chance, and I was very happy for him to get two goals tonight.”

On Juan Luis Anangono’s performance

“If you look at Juan’s production, especially maybe earlier when he’s played a little more minutes…I forget the game we had at home, he got brought down for the penalty kick. He scored a goal in one of the games. He missed the PK. He could’ve scored that one. So, what I will say about Juan is he’s a terrific professional. He’s been right with the team all along, with not getting many minutes because of Quincy’s play I feel like. But what I like about him is the way he goes about it. He tries very hard for the team. And I’m very, very happy for him to get the two goals tonight.”

On Mike Magee’s status

“He got clocked in the ankle when I think it was Kevan George caught him with the challenge. So we’ll see how he is, but I’m not sure right now.”

On what changed in the second half

“I said to our guys at halftime ‘they’re going to make changes’ because I thought we outplayed them completely the first half. So I said, ‘Expect to see changes.’ And I think that the goal from Anor, he made a difference. They were more forceful. They tried to quickly counter attack on us. And to be honest, they did a good job. And I think that until we kind of figured it out towards the end of the game, we were in a bit of trouble. So again, we’ve got to be better at doing a 90-minute game and making sure that we see it through and do our thing. But what I will say is that the fighting spirit in the guys to come back again and to go on and win the game is great. It’d just be nice to put a good performance of 2 or 3 to nil at some point. It’d be nice, but we’re not there yet. We’re trying hard. And I can’t fault the guys for effort at all. They’ve been great.”

On making adjustments throughout the game

“We were down in the game, so we have to push it. Bringing on Alex is a bit more attacking minded than putting Logan in his role. Juan’s a forward, he wants to score goals. Bringing him on obviously is key. I just wanted to bring on a fresh defender with Jhon. I felt that Columbus was getting into the game with the quick breaks. I wanted to make sure that we shored that up a little bit. You know, I was pleased with the subs that came on. They did a nice job. And I think the whole team responded when we did that.”

Chicago Fire forward Juan Luis Anangono

On the opportunity to come into the game and be a hero

“The team worked hard to get all the goals and I’m personally happy to have scored the two goals. I think the whole team are heroes. The whole team worked hard. This is a team, we’re 11 players and seven subs and other players that are all helping the team. This is a team, there isn’t one hero. If there’s a hero, it’s the team. We all have the characteristics and we’re all ready to play. Who plays and who doesn’t is the decision of the coach. I think the coach does what is best for the team, thinking of who will help the team. I believe we’re all good players and we all need to be ready to help at whatever moment.”

Chicago Fire midfielder Jeff Larentowicz

On using the Open Cup games to help turn things around over the break

“It’s just about the will to win, and taking care of the things we should. I think that having two home games in the Open Cup is a good opportunity for us to get into a rhythm. We’ve had some injuries and we’ve gotten some guys back. Right now we’re just finding a way to win and build on that heading back into the regular season.”

On how this will help going back to MLS play next week

“The guys that are playing in these games are probably the guys that will be playing once the regular season starts up again, so I think it’s about everyone developing a rhythm and understanding each other. If we can create goals we can start to see patterns of play we like to do and hopefully we can carry those in the regular season again.”

On training during the break

“I think over the past couple of weeks it’s just been about getting bodies back. For a while there we were pretty thin, and now it’s about getting everyone back, veteran guys, healthy and training hard again because we have trained well the last couple of weeks and I think it’s showing in games.

Chicago Fire forward Quincy Amarikwa

On coming back in the second half to get the result

“We just battled. Unfortunately, we let them score two unanswered [goals]. After we came in at halftime, we said we wanted to come out on front foot, but we dug in. Juan [Luis Anangono] came off the bench and really made an impact on the game, he helped us tie it up and the rest is history.”

On Columbus’ play in the second half:

“When you’re the team on the road and down a goal at halftime, you don’t have anything to lose. So, you kind of throw everything but the kitchen sink at the home team, and that second goal kind of just fell their way. I don’t think there’s any kind of defensive error from thinking about it. I’d have to go back and look at the tape, he just happened to be at the right place at the right time and took advantage of it and they capitalized.”

Columbus Crew Head Coach Gregg Berhalter

On the match:

“I thought it was a good game. We put a different system into play and the guys knew about it at the last moment. We wanted to try something. We got a lot out of that exercise. I’m proud of the way they adapted to the system, and proud of the way they played the game. Specifically, the second half, where I thought we were extremely dominant.”

On rallying his team at half time:

“We weren’t confident in our movement in terms of how we were executing what we designed. The message was positive. All things considered, it’s a good job. Now here’s what we can do to make it even better. The guys did that, especially in the second half. They played really well.”

On Arrieta’s goal:

“It was a great goal. Great move. Good finish. It was good. We need Jairo to score those goals. He had some other chances as well and we want him to be dangerous.”

On the team’s defensive 5-man posture tonight:

“It was good. We honestly gave them this today. So having said that, I think they did a great job. It was something where we felt we wanted to take a look at. We thought we could expose some things of theirs and take advantage of an organized back line.”

On Chicago’s equalizer late in the second half:

“If I take anything from the game, I’m most disappointed with that. I think that when you are at that stage of the game, you got to be disciplined enough to carry it out. And I would say it’s a little bit of the guys who haven’t been getting enough minutes. They weren’t comfortable in that position. Chicago is putting more pressure on us, and we just needed to be brave and keep playing. I thought we stopped doing that. As a result, we got punished.”

Columbus Crew Midfielder Bernardo Anor

On the match:

“It was a crazy game. I think we had the opportunity to close down the match. We started to lose 1-0, and then we went up 2-1, and then 7 minutes left we let them tie the game which leads us to overtime. Then we give up two goals. That killed the game so we should have done better towards the end of the game.”

On coming back to take the lead in the second half:

“A lot of new guys on the field. For all of us, we need to hold ourselves accountable to do whatever it takes to get a ‘w’ and I think the performance for most of the guys was pretty impressive. We were trying out a new system and it’s the first time we did such a thing. Some of the things we did out there we are forced to take home and assess them, and get better at them.”

On his goal scored in the 70th minute:

“Speas was coming in with his right foot and I was just making the run to play me through and I decided to shoot the goal. I gathered the rebound and saw it was wide open and got it with my left foot.”

On his thoughts on the new system:

“It’s a transition game, pretty much. Having five in the back, we knew that Chicago was going to have one of the guys come in pretty deep and have the ball so one of the purposes for one of the 3 center backs to release his man and come help us in the middle. So by the time we win the ball, we got to push all the backs forward and get numbers up. I think we’re going to do a better job in doing that. Again, it’s the first time but I think working on it we can pull it off.”

On returning to playing FC Dallas on Saturday in league play:

“We don’t like losing of course, but I think the positive thing is we will be 100% in getting those 3 points against Dallas. We need to focus on that so now our priority is to get good rest and our mind ready for the game.”

If the experience around last week's 2-1 weather-shortened victory over Pittsburgh felt familiar, that's only because it was.

The game was just over a year on from a Fire Open Cup match vs. the Columbus Crew that never got off the ground on the original June 12 date as sever thunderstorms crashed in on Chicagoland throughout that night.

Instead the game was rescheduled for a noon kickoff the following day, with the Fire giving FREE entry to all fans that could make it Toyota Park for the match.

Take a trip down memory lane with highlights from that game:

Good news! Wednesday's kickoff forecast is perfect soccer weather: partly cloudy, with a temperature of 65 degrees and only 10% precipitation.

Get your tickets to the match here and book your place on $10 Pub to Pitch buses from Cleo's, The Globe and Fado at www.pubtopitch.com.

Mexico has every right to celebrate after today's 3-1 victory over Croatia pushed them into the Knockout Round in Brazil.

No doubt frustrated after another dubious call, Mexico eventually unleashed three goals in 10 minutes from Rafa Marquez (72'), Andres Guardado (75') and Javier Hernandez (82').

Even if you're a U.S. supporter, you have to appreciate that Mexico is through to the next round if only because of the possibility of more celebrations like this from manager Miguel Herrera. Go on, Mexico!

Holland wasn't supposed to be "up" for this World Cup and early on in their tournament opener vs. Spain, that seemed like it might be true.

Then Robin van Persie score this goal to level things just before halftime...

Braces from RVP (44', 72') and Arjen Robben (53', 80') as well as another goal from Stefan de Vrij have the world in shock as Holland has found payback from their World Cup finals defeat four years ago, defeating Spain 5-1 today in Salvador.

The draw was quite simple and straight forward as participants were asked to first choose a number 1-32 to determine the order. Once that was settled, we went about picking the nations with which we would live and die with over the next month (or maybe just a few weeks).

A photo blow-by-blow of the day’s festivities…

We'll start with Corporate Partnership's Matt Hoy who was so overjoyed with his choice of Cameroon (Odds: 1000/1) that he accidentally held the flag upside down.

Then there was the great reaction from Jeff Harbert who wasn't exactly pleased with with the laughter that followed after he drew Australia (Odds: 1000/1)

And though she may not look like it, Sponsorship's Lauren Griswold was pretty happy to have chosen reigning World and European champions Spain...

Now, we're all busy and sometimes can't make the big draw. In that case, you can designate a proxy to draw for you, or if none is designated, yours truly does it instead.

This was the case for Director of Business Development Paul Cadwell, who pulled Algeria (Odds 2000/1) and Team Videographer Leo Flores who got South Korea (Odds: 300/1)...

Of course, like any FIFA bigwig, I'd say I did myself proud enough by getting 2010 finalists, Holland (Odds: 25/1)...

But to be honest, the must successful Fire competitions draw participant by far is Mike Ernst. In 2010, he took finalists The Netherlands. In the Euro 2012 draw, he came away with eventual champions Spain.

Called over in passing when his number came up towards the end of Tuesday's draw, the Fire Sr. Vice President pulled World Cup hosts and favorites Brazil without the blink of an eye.

Time will tell if Mike strikes gold again... See the full results of Tuesday's Fire Staff World Cup draw...

“Points-wise, not great. Spirit-wise, I thought tonight was good. Difficult circumstances with the red card and all the stuff that went on tonight. What I liked about the team tonight: we fought, and we stuck up for each other. That's the positive out of it. The negative: we didn't get a result at home, obviously. Frustration is probably the word I would say right now.”

On if he had saw the reason for Obafemi Martins' sending-off

“No, I didn't, I haven't looked at a replay. I haven't seen it yet.”

On expecting officiating controversies

“I don't know. I thought both teams came out to try and win the game, which is important. Some decisions for us didn't go the right way, and you get frustrated with all that stuff; it spills over to your play a little bit. I'm not going to fault the effort of our players at all; we're not quite able to figure it out yet. We have good moments; we have patterns of play that are good, we look like we're a good side, and then we falter and get punished. It's frustrating. I hate to use the word, I keep saying it, but the balance is not quite there yet. No excuses with the three games in the week, but it's never easy. But I thought we kept going until the end; we could have gotten something out of the game. Obviously that third goal killed the game a little bit. Quincy [Amarikwa] had a great chance I think at 2-1, and then Juan [Luis Anangono] had a good chance at 3-2. That's football. That's the tough part about it. And I'm sitting there just frustrated, and you guys are fans of us, as frustrated as you are; I'm sitting there going, ‘why can't we get it sorted out?’ But signs are good, young guys are doing okay. Harry [Shipp] did good tonight, so hopefully we can turn the corner.”

On creating chances and goals in play

“We created some good chances. If you look at the experience on their team, it's a pretty experienced team; and we're a little bit younger and naive, and all the guys we have out...there's no excuses. But I'm not going to fault my guys; I thought they fought right to the end, tried to get something out of the game, but just couldn't quite get something out of it. I'm not going to turn to the excuse of ‘we got guys out,’ because, I thought the players that played tonight played well for us. Big, important thing is, take the punishment, if you like, and move on. You have to. We have an Open Cup game next, hopefully we can get through that round; I think there's another round of Open Cup, and then we get to get back into MLS. So we're still in the picture, which is always good; although we have to start winning games, obviously. But the progression of the team playing-wise, I thought, showed some fight tonight, which is important.”

“Anytime you go with two feet, it alarms referees for some reason. I think that Jhon had no other opportunity to block the ball, and to go with his feet sort of showing. It didn't catch the player; give a penalty kick, but don't give a sending-off. Or give a sending-off, but no penalty kick, whatever you want to do, but I just think the double thing was just, for me, not a great decision. I haven't seen it, but it looked like Jhon was just trying to block the ball; it wasn't malicious, it was low, and it looked like he was trying to get his feet sorted out. But, again, the rules are what they are, so I can't really argue with it. But I struggled a little bit all night with the officiating. I thought it was a little bit one-way, but that's my opinion.”

On the World Cup break serving as a chance to get healthy

“You have two main guys out, Patrick Nyarko and Mike Magee are out at the moment, so you have to help them get ready for play coming in the next couple of weeks. We have the Open Cup, which is in our break. Alex is not 100%; obviously played a little bit tonight, but he's not close to what he can play like at the moment. So we have a little bit of time to get our guys healthy and hopefully start the next MLS game out with a win, because we need to start winning, obviously, to have any chance to do well this year. But I think the emergence of the young players is my focus, and I think they're doing okay. We're not wishing the season away at all; I make sure that we're ready to play each game and ready to go. I thought again, we didn't flop and buckle under in this game, which we could have done against a good side. Each game we've played, other than maybe a couple, we've been right there, right in the match, right and ready to go; but the naiveté of our team, and it's not a slight on them, it's just reality, we can't figure it out quite yet. It's frustrating as a coach, and the players are frustrated. I think that for us, it's making sure that we build on it, and make sure we get positive with it.”

Jeff Larentowicz, Chicago Fire Midfielder

On tonight’s loss:

“This may be the toughest so far. You might want to put it up there with the Real Salt Lake game, but they came at us – Seattle didn’t. They were content with their lead waiting for us, but somehow they still got the better of us which is difficult.”

On where the team goes from here heading into the break:

“We have to decide. Everyone has to go home this week and figure out if they’re content with where we are, think about if they’re content coming in after games saying, ‘Oh well, we did alright – we didn’t score or we didn’t finish that chance,’ or they can make a difference, they can make a change. I don’t know what happened around the league, but we’re at the bottom of the conference – we have to make a move and we have to stop being content with half chances and one goal losses at home.”

On the team’s effort:

“It’s not the effort, it’s not the effort. It’s critical moments in the game when players make a difference or don’t make a difference, and at the moment we’re not making that difference.

On how to make that difference:

“We can’t be content. We can’t come in and say, ‘We did alright.’ There’s no attendance award, we have to come and we have to do something.”

On the goals for the remainder of the season:

“I think the goal is always to make the playoffs. We can’t come in and say we’re going to be the MLS champs - we have to work for it, we have to fight for it. We have to fight to get into the playoffs period. Then you can move on and rewrite your goals. At the moment - sure we’ve hung with teams, sure we’ve played well against top competition, but we haven’t gotten over that hump. Like I said it’s not about sprinting harder, running faster or jumping higher, it’s not about that because we do that. It’s about the critical moments when we have to make a difference, that’s what we have to focus on.”

On the Open Cup as an opportunity to turn things around:

“Winning is contagious, I think. You catch it and you want it. We haven’t won, it’s almost like we enjoy coming in and being content with what’s going on. So, sure we win the first round and we play another game before we play a MLS game, so sure we can get the wheels moving, we can get guys healthy and can start pushing on. But you can see we’re in games. It’s not about personnel; it’s just about those little things. Against different competition in the Open Cup maybe we can sharpen those edges.”

Quincy Amarikwa, Chicago Fire Forward

On the chemistry with Harry Shipp:

“I think Harry and I are building good chemistry up-top. It’s translating on the field and it’s turning into goals. We just need to figure it out as a team now, making sure we can prevent teams from scoring multiple goals on us so we can come away with three points. Tonight we can build from it, learn from it and move on.”

Harry Shipp, Chicago Fire Forward

On play leading up to the goal, scoring and the result:

“I was trying to show up in places to find the ball, but it was hard. I was getting frustrated, I think everyone was getting frustrated, with our lack of keeping it. Right before the first goal I started feeling a little more comfortable, kind of feeling the touch, and then I hit a good shot. After that the momentum switched and I think we were back in the game. In the second half we gave up that third goal, which killed us, but I think that besides that we really kept the ball, we possessed the ball. We did things we know we can do. We had a chance to tie it up at 2-2 and to make it 3-3, but unfortunately it didn’t go in. I scored two goals, but I’m not going to be happy unless I score two more and we win 4-3. That’s the difference in this feeling and difference in New York when we won 5-4.”

On the chippy play during the game:

“I think we have to keep our focus. There was a lot of extracurricular stuff going on after every tackle, there were people complaining, but I think you just have to keep your head and focus. I think we did a good job in the second half of just moving the ball and playing simple – keeping the ball and interchanging especially through the midfield. It was hard for them to keep the ball. I think if we had done that all 90 minutes it might be a different story.”

Seattle Sounders Head Coach Sigi Schmid

On the match:

“You know, I thought we made the game harder than we needed to make it. Obviously we are in a good position with a two goal lead playing a man up, and then we get a man thrown out. At that point, we gave up a goal, you know, I think Shipp took both his goals really well, he finished them well, one left footed, one right footed, and they were good finishes, but they were plays we should have stopped a bit earlier. Hats off to him and his finishes, so it made the game tight. Kept it tight all the way through.”

What changed when the Fire scored, making it two to one:

“It picked up their spirit. They are obviously playing at home so they want to make a good impression in front of their fans and they want to do well. We’ve had a good run, played well, and we have a few guys that are banged up out there and so guys are just thinking of making it through. Now we have a 5 day break. Maybe they were thinking of that.”

Seattle Sounders Midfielder Marco Pappa

On the physical match:

“I am pretty happy with the group. We were good tonight. We played a strong game. Red cards and many fouls but at the end of the day we have the three points. We are pretty happy about that.”

On his return to Chicago:

“I was excited to see to see old faces, old friends, old fans. It was for sure a lot of feelings on the pitch but Chicago has been a big part of my career.”

Seattle Sounders Midfielder Lamar Neagle

On his game winning shot:

“It has been something I’ve been trying to do a little bit more, have some composure in the box, that kind of show. When it was coming down, I did want to hit it first time but it wasn’t bouncing right. I didn’t want to rush it. Got it down and then tried to curl it in the back.”

On the funny bounce it took before he struck the ball:

“I was trying not to panic. It took a long time to come down the first time, then it bounced weird, and just took it off my knee and tried to settle it as much as I could before I took a shot.”

On the Fire goalkeeper being screened:

“Yes, I think he was screened. It was definitely behind the defender so he wouldn’t have been, or he didn’t see it before it was going in. Sean Johnson is a great goalkeeper so luckily the defender was there to block his view.”